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January 16, 2013

WIPO Report: Worldwide Patent Filings Increased 7.8% in 2011

Last month, the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) issued a report indicating that worldwide
intellectual property filings showed strong growth in 2011 despite a global
economy that continued to underperform. In
particular, the report on 2012 World Intellectual Property Indicators
notes that patent filings grew by 7.8% in 2011, the second consecutive year
with more than 7% growth.

The report points out that in 2011, China's
State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) became the largest patent office in
the world in terms of the number of patent applications received. SIPO overtook the U.S. Patent and Trademark (USPTO)
in 2011 after passing the Japan Patent Office (JPO) in 2010. The final tallies for 2011 show that SIPO
received 526,412 applications, the USPTO received 503,582 applications, and the
JPO received 342,610 applications. The
report notes that over the past 100 years, only three patent offices -- the
USPTO, JPO, and Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt (DPMA) or German Patent Office
-- have occupied the top spot. In
addition to China's milestone, worldwide patent filings exceeded the 2 million
mark for the first time in 2011, with some 2.14 million applications being
filed. The worldwide backlog of
unprocessed applications, which numbers some 4.8 million applications, dropped
by 4.9% in 2011 after falling by 3.3% in 2010.

With respect to country of origin,
residents of Japan filed the largest number of patent applications worldwide
(472,417), followed by Chinese residents, and then U.S. residents. As for subject matter, the report indicates
that applications directed to digital communications experienced the
highest average annual growth rate (+8.1%) between 2006 and 2010. Over the same period, biotech applications
showed 3.0% growth and pharmaceutical applications dropped 1.6%. With respect to 2011 patent
grants, the report indicates that Japan took the top spot with 238,323 patents
issued and the U.S. placed second with 224,505 patents.